Nottinghamshire University Hospitals said it would look into different options for its return, but Mr Carey feels it is important bosses knew know exactly how strongly people felt.

“I think it all needs prompting,” he said. “At least this way they will know that there’s a lot of strong feeling about it.”

The unit was shut down in March after several neighbours complained about the noise of the generator.

But furious residents in the town branded them ‘selfish’ and fear many people will not travel all the way into Nottingham city to get screened, leaving lives at risk.

The Advertiser has been inundated with angry letters about the closure ever since the axe fell on the unit which we have pledged to send on to the hospital trust to show how vital residents believe the service is.

And Mr Carey, who lives in Mansfield Road, said women had lost a ‘valuable facility’ because of the ‘selfish act of a handful of people.’

“We live on a main road and have loud traffic travelling past our windows every morning at 5am but we accept it because we live there.

“I think that mobile unit has been there for longer than most residents.

“Would they move to an airport and then complain about the noise of the planes? That’s the gut feeling of the people in the area.”

At the time of the closure Nottinghamshire University Hospitals said it would investigate the possibility of laying underground cables to run the unit of the mains supply when the park is dug up for planned improvements later this year.

But many residents want the unit brought back sooner than that, with one local oncology nurse telling parish councillors that the unit’s removal was putting lives at risk.

Now Mr and Mrs Carey hope their petition will sow the seeds for the unit’s return sooner rather than later.

Mrs Carey said she shared the concerns of many others about the wellbeing of pensioners with no transport who were unlikely to catch two buses into the city.

“It’s not easy for them,” she said. “And if you think of all the areas it covers – it’s not just Eastwood that’s affected, it’s Underwood, Brinsley, Selston.

“It’s a fabulous idea to have it in Eastwood. You can get there and back and have it all done within 20 minutes.

“With the city you are talking more like two hours by the time you’ve parked and so on.”

The petitions have been placed in pubs and shops around Eastwood and Newthorpe.

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